US Embassy building in Kiev. File photoKYIV, Feb. 5 U.S. Chargé d'Affaires ai in Ukraine Christina Quinn said in an interview on Savik Shuster's Freedom of Speech YouTube talk show that sanctions against Russia should only be imposed if they escalate conflict around Ukraine. According to her, if sanctions are introduced preemptively, it will «cause pain», but will be less of a deterrent to escalation. «In our opinion, sanctions, a very tough package of sanctions that we have collected in the United States, combined with the sanctions that Europe is working on must be deterrence, and to be that deterrence, they cannot be used until Russia does the actions that we are trying to contain, if we apply them (sanctions — ed.) earlier, we will hurt. Russia will suffer losses, and this will deter them less from doing something … We hope that Russia will make miscalculations that will help it understand that aggressive actions will be a mistake,» she said. Kiev and Western states recently express concern over the alleged increase in «aggressive actions» by Russia near the borders of Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly denied such accusations, saying that it does not threaten anyone and is not going to attack anyone, and statements about «Russian aggression» are used as an excuse to deploy more NATO military equipment near Russian borders. The Russian Foreign Ministry previously noted that statements The West about «Russian aggression» and the possibility of helping Kiev defend itself against it is both ridiculous and dangerous. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is moving troops within its territory and at its own discretion. According to him, this does not threaten anyone and should not worry anyone.
